Should You Buy Barrick Gold Stock As Copper Production Soars?

The shares of Barrick Gold Corporation (NYSE: GOLD), one of the largest gold producers in the world, have gained about 6% over the last month, marginally outperforming the broader S&P 500. While gold prices have trended slightly lower year-to-date due to a strong dollar and the Fed’s aggressive interest rate hikes, there are a couple of factors that are driving the stock higher. Barrick’s Q2 2022 results, published earlier this month, were stronger than expected, with earnings per share standing at $0.27 share, up from $0.23 a year ago, driven by stronger copper production and slightly higher price realizations for gold. Barrick’s copper production jumped 25% year-over-year to 120 million lbs and the company noted that it was on track to meet its copper production guidance targets (420 – 470 million lbs) for the year. Barrick is moving to scale up its copper production in a big way, and investors are likely pleased with the developments given that the metal is expected to see higher demand as the global economy moves to green energy solutions and electric vehicles. Barrick could also have an edge over other miners in the copper space, considering that copper often occurs alongside gold in large-scale deposits.

However, now that Barrick stock has seen a gain of about 6% over the last month, will it continue its upward trajectory in the near term, or is a decline imminent? Going by historical performance, there is a roughly equal chance of a rise or a decline in GOLD stock over the next month. Out of 792 instances in the last ten years that Barrick Gold stock saw a twenty-one-day rise of 6% or more, 414 of them resulted in the stock rising over the subsequent one-month period (twenty-one trading days). This historical pattern reflects 414 out of 792, or a 52% chance of a rise in GOLD stock over the coming month, implying a neutral near-term outlook for the stock. See our analysis on  Barrick Gold Stock Chance of A Rise for more details.

Calculation of ‘Event Probability’ and ‘Chance of Rise’ using last ten years data

• After moving -3% or more over five days, the stock rose in the next five days on 46% of the occasions.
• After moving 0% or more over ten days, the stock rose in the next ten days on 46% of the occasions
• After moving 6% or more over a twenty-one-day period, the stock rose in the next twenty-one days on 52% of the occasions.

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[1] Month-to-date and year-to-date as of 8/23/2022
[2] Cumulative total returns since the end of 2016